England captain Stuart Broad: I blame myself for defeat

England's Stuart Broad reacts after bowling New Zealand's Colin Munro for 28 in their Twenty20 cricket match at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand.

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

Opposite number Brendon McCullum was the match-winner for the hosts, hitting 74 from just 38 balls as New Zealand levelled the series with one game to go.

Mitchell McClenaghan took two important early wickets to undermine England’s attempt at their highest-ever run chase in this format after the Kiwis had made 192-6.

Ian Butler marked his first Twenty20 international in more than two years with figures of 2-9 and then James Franklin grabbed 4-15 late on as England collapsed.

Jos Buttler (54) continued his fine form with a half-century from only 28 balls for England, but could only narrow the margin of defeat. Broad followed his career-best 4-24 in Saturday’s opening win in Auckland with his worst of 0-53 here.

He conceded 22 runs, largely to McCullum, in his final over and acknowledged his own bowling was not up to scratch – and that he regretted his decision to put New Zealand in.

“We got certain parts of the game wrong and in such a short format you can’t afford to do that.

“McCullum played fantastically well. Anyone who can get 70 odd off 30 balls has played a fantastic knock.

“After 15 or 16 overs, I thought we were really in the game. But I got it slightly wrong at the end, and then it was always going to be a tough ask.”

England ended up 137 all out, despite Buttler’s best efforts, after stumbling to 9-2 and then 80-7.

“We needed to keep wickets intact,” said Broad. “But we didn’t do that and as soon as we lost three in the first six overs, we were struggling.”

McCullum admitted he would have put England in, had he won the toss.

But Broad added: “I made the wrong decision at the toss to bowl. The dew did change the wicket quite a bit, and the ball swung.

“The guys said it came off the wicket a bit two-paced as well. New Zealand just bowled length, and that’s all they had to do.

“We didn’t adapt to the conditions as well as we could have done. On such a small ground, we thought it would be hard to defend virtually anything.”